Gingrich is the REASON Romney is leading. Not only can Newt NOT win the nomination under any ciscumstances, even if it were true that he could, his national negatives are massive and decades-entrenched and he would LOSE to Obama.
Santorum is a perfectly acceptable conservative who would likely win the nomination at this point if Gingrich would drop out (and start planning his next “sofa moment” with the Left or attack on Paul Ryan, etc.).
But Newt has one of the biggest egos in all of American politics. He won’t go away and he will make sure Romney wins. Not that he means to. He’s just too full of himself to admit he’s a distant 3rd and will remain a distant 3rd, an also-ran.
All that said, he’s very popular here at FR for reasons that take no heed of his pathologically flighty politics. And I have said all this at the risk of being called a troll, a Romneybot, a communist, terrorist, etc.
You are dead on right. Newt cannot win, even at a brokered convention. I do not understand the denial of pure logic by the newt supporters here.
The ONLY way one could still support and enthuse over Gingrich for president is if one wished for Gingrich, but Romney were your second choice. Because at this stage for the Gingrich campaign, it’s time to say , “Well, Newt can’t get it, but his still being in the race helps Romney, my next best choice.”
And I’m not sure how conservative that thinking is, but it’s a free country. Obviously a lot of people out there like Romney. I just thought Free Republic wasn’t among the fans of Mitt.